Class DIPLOPODA

Diplopoda

© Copyright Graham Milledge. C/o Western Australian Museum.

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Introduction

Diplopoda, commonly known as millipedes, are long, thin arthropods with two pairs of legs on most posterior body segments. They feed largely on decaying plant material. Millipedes are sometimes confused with centipedes, which never have more than one pair of legs per body segment and are typically predators.

Although millipedes are common and familiar animals in Australia, they are remarkably little-studied. According to the Dutch diplopodologist C.A.W. Jeekel, who has collected in Australia and done much to organise what little is known of our fauna, the unpopularity of millipedes has several causes:

"The lack of interest in the systematic and faunistic study of millipedes among Australian biologists seems understandable. Unlike many other arthropods, diplopods are inconspicuous animals without bright colours or peculiar habits to attract the attention of people. There are no handbooks to facilitate identification or to give an easy access to the literature. No popular accounts to get acquainted with the diversity of the group are available.

"The state museums are isolated and widely separated from each other, and greatly under-staffed, especially in their arthropod sections. In spite of an apparent devotion to their tasks, one cannot expect these institutions to adequately cope with the immensely rich Australian arthropod fauna. Collecting activities are necessarily of an incidental nature, and useful as these may be in the absence of a coordinated program, they cannot provide the basis for comprehensive faunistic studies.

"One may wonder whether Australia, with its large territory and small population, will ever produce the broad scale of specialists needed for simply taking stock of the arthropod fauna of the continent" (Jeekel 1981:2).

Hopefully, this checklist will become one of the taxonomic resources for a revival of interest in millipedes. The job ahead is daunting: from a fauna of perhaps 2000 species, fewer than 250 native Australian millipedes have so far been described. In Tasmania, only 27 of an estimated 160 native species have valid names (Mesibov 2000). Mark Harvey (Western Australian Museum) has recently increased the number of diagnosable species of paradoxosomatid millipedes in Western Australia by ninefold (M. Harvey, pers. comm.), and Dennis Black (La Trobe University) has found an even larger ratio of undescribed to described polyzoniidan millipedes (D. Black, pers. comm.).

Millipede taxonomy in the checklist follows Hoffman (1980) with minor changes following recent reclassifications by C.A.W. Jeekel and W.A. Shear (noted under the relevant taxa). Users should refer to Hoffman (1980) for details of the sometimes complicated history of higher taxon names. Users should also be aware that an alternative higher-level millipede classification by Enghoff (1984) is preferred to that of Hoffman by many diplopodologists. Note that no new taxonomic actions have been taken in compiling this checklist, which is simply intended to be a guide to the relevant literature.

Introductory texts in the checklist include brief descriptive or diagnostic notes where appropriate. However, millipede taxonomy is based on microscopic details of structure and is difficult for non-specialists to understand without illustrations and an explanation of anatomical jargon. Checklist users should consult Harvey & Yen (1989) for a simply illustrated guide to the millipede orders in Australia, and Shelley (1999) for a well-illustrated introduction to millipedes worldwide. The best general text on non-taxonomic aspects of Diplopoda is Hopkin & Read (1992).

Only primary types are noted in the checklist. When in doubt about the location of type specimens, I have written 'whereabouts unknown', but many of the specimens so categorised may, in fact, be well-curated in museums overseas, and should not be thought of as lost. Syntype locations are given where known, but in many such cases (especially species decribed by K.W. Verhoeff) there may be additional syntypes in other, unpublished locations.

Acknowledgements

For advice and assistance, the compiler is grateful to Geoff Baker (CSIRO Entomology, Canberra), Dennis Black (La Trobe University, Wodonga), Claudia Brockmann (Zoologisches Museum, Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany), Kaye Dimmack (Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston, Tasmania), Monique Nguyen Duy-Jacquemin (Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France), Henrik Enghoff (Zoologisk Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark), Sergei Golovatch (Institute for Problems of Ecology and Evolution, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow), Richard Hoffman (Virginia Museum of Natural History, Martinsville, Virginia, USA), C.A.W. Jeekel (Oisterwijk, Netherlands), Graham Milledge (Australian Museum, Sydney), Helen Read (Farnham Common, UK) and William Shear (Hampden-Sydney College, Hampden-Sydney, Virginia, USA). Technical advice and encouragement was patiently provided by Keith Houston, ABRS Environment Australia. Compilation of this work was assisted by funds from ABRS.

Limital Area

Distribution data in the Directory is by political and geographic region descriptors and serves as a guide to the distribution of a taxon. For details of a taxon's distribution, the reader should consult the cited references (if any) at genus and species levels.

Australia is defined as including Lord Howe Is., Norfolk Is., Cocos (Keeling) Ils, Christmas Is., Ashmore and Cartier Ils, Macquarie Is., Australian Antarctic Territory, Heard and McDonald Ils, and the waters associated with these land areas of Australian political responsibility. Political areas include the adjacent waters.

Terrestrial geographical terms are based on the drainage systems of continental Australia, while marine terms are self explanatory except as follows: the boundary between the coastal and oceanic zones is the 200 m contour; the Arafura Sea extends from Cape York to 124 DEG E; and the boundary between the Tasman and Coral Seas is considered to be the latitude of Fraser Island, also regarded as the southern terminus of the Great Barrier Reef.

Distribution records, if any, outside of these areas are listed as extralimital. The distribution descriptors for each species are collated to genus level. Users are advised that extralimital distribution for some taxa may not be complete.

Excluded Species

POLYXENIDAE: Monographis schultzei Attems, 1909, see Duy-Jacquemin, M.N. & Condé, B. 1967. Morphologie et géonémie du genre Monographis Attems. Mitteilungen aus dem Hamburgischen Zoologischen Museum und Institut. Hamburg ns 64: 43-81 [68].

References

Enghoff, H. 1984. Phylogeny of millipedes – a cladistic analysis. Zeitschrift für Zoologische Systematik und Evolutionsforschung 22(1): 8-26

Harvey, M.S. & Yen, A.L. 1989. Worms to Wasps: An Illustrated Guide to Australia's Terrestrial Invertebrates. Melbourne : Oxford University Press/Museum of Victoria pp. 203

Hoffman, R.L. 1980. Classification of the Diplopoda. Geneva : Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle, Genève pp. 238

Hopkin, S.P. & Read, H.J. 1992. The Biology of Millipedes. Oxford : Oxford University Press pp. 233

Jeekel, C.A.W. 1981. Australia Expedition 1980; legit C.A.W. Jeekel and A.M. Jeekel-Rijvers. List of collecting stations, together with general notes on the distribution of millipedes in eastern Australia and Tasmania. Verslagen en Technische Gegevens, Instituut voor Taxonomische Zoölogie (Zoölogisch Museum), Universiteit van Amsterdam 30: 1-59

Mesibov, R. 2000. An overview of the Tasmanian millipede fauna. Tasmanian Naturalist 122: 15-28

Shelley, R.M. 1999. Centipedes and millipedes with emphasis on North American fauna. Kansas School Naturalist 45(3): 1-15